Project: Connectivity

Dennis dug a trench for the pipe from the well to the house. This trench will be extended along the 800' driveway to carry water and electrical power to posts alongside it.

September 27, 2010

We spent yesterday connecting water pipe and electrical cable to nine posts along the driveway, and one post in the observatory clearing. These two posts near the driveway entrance are only 35 feet apart, but the others are spaced at 100-foot intervals.

October 3, 2010

We finished wiring the power cable to the nine driveway posts and one observatory post. In addition, we pulled Ethernet and telephone cables to the observatory area, and coaxial cables to the spot where the satellite TV dish will be installed. This photo shows the service head with the TV satellite dish cables coiled for future use.

October 16, 2010

We pulled about 25% of the connectivity cables inside the house. This is one of 39 boxes, all of which contain an Ethernet cable, a 4-line telephone cable, and a television cable. Some boxes contain two television cables.

October 20, 2010

We completed the connectivity wiring inside the house. All telephone, television, and Ethernet cables run to a network closet in the basement, where they may be connected or disconnected at will.

October 28, 2010

This is the network closet after drywall was hung.

December 22, 2010

Mike installed cover plates on all the connectivity boxes. Covers are required to pass the county inspection, even though the cables in the box aren't yet connected.

I intended to use a punch-down block in the network closet to connect 39 phone jack cables to the phone service cable, but the punch-down terminals didn't work with stranded wires. So I "temporarily" soldered groups of wires together in clumps.

After five years of living with this kludge, I built a bus bar to connect the cables. I soldered two lengths of #18 bare wire to six pairs of brass wood screws driven into a 15½" 1x2 board. Another 1x2 "comb" has 39 ¼" holes drilled in it to hold the cables in place along the bus.

Two wires from each cable are soldered to the bus wires, and the remaining six wires are folded away for future use if needed. This required stripping and soldering 78 wires, but the result is much neater and easier to maintain then the original "clumps" arrangement.